Walkers for assisting individuals who are crippled, disabled or otherwise weakened have been used for many years. The walkers serve primarily as an aid by which the individual can use the arms to take some strain off the legs. They also provide a stabilizing 10 means to those individuals who have an impaired sense of equilibrium.
Those walkers which have become most popular tend to have an open frame structure with two inverted U-shaped side members and a cross bar permanently connecting the side members together. In effect, the walkers have four legs which make the walkers very stable. The cross bar normally is itself very sturdy, sufficient to withstand the full weight of the average person. It is the framed nature of the walker which makes it stable in use. More recently, walkers have been made with latch mechanisms which allow 20 the walkers to collapse upon themselves to create a more compact structure for ease of storage and transport.
Health care institutions such as hospitals and physical therapy facilities need to have on hand several walkers to serve their patients. Those patients can range in height from short to tall 25 and in weight from slim to heavy. There are a significant number of overweight patients who can be considered grossly obese. Walkers currently commercially available all have height adjusting legs to accommodate different heights of patients. The same walkers typically come in three standard widths to accommodate three broadly classified weight groups of persons. The institutions must have a sufficient number of each of those walkers available on a daily basis to meet an unpredictable need. Past usage dictates to a certain extent the number of each of the three width category walkers which are needed. To ensure a walker need can be instantly met, the institution must have an oversupply of each of all three width categories of walkers. This creates a cost problem. It also creates a storage problem in that the walkers typically are used during daytime hours, but must be stored during the nighttime. The folding feature found on many walker models alleviates somewhat the storage problem. However, the cost problems associated with an excess in each of the width categories of walkers remains as does the consequent storage problem.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,330 discloses a walker which recognizes the need for a walker to have a width adjusting feature. The disclosed walker is useful to a limited extent. The patented walker can only handle medium weight persons because of the nature of its structure. It also is cumbersome to use and cannot be folded. It simply does not fully solve the aforementioned cost and storage problems.
In accord with a need experienced by many health care institutions for many years, there has now been developed a unique walker. The walker accommodates many sizes of persons. It most importantly can support the weight of persons who are obese. It can as well be stored or transported with ease due to a folding feature.